Astronaut Chris Hadfield thrilled local students over their lunch hour with an appearance at St. Joe’s High School.
The gym was packed with nearly 1,500 grade six students excited to hear stories of space from the former commander of the International Space Station.
He encouraged the crowd to pursue their own dreams like he did when he was nine years old and decided he wanted to be an astronaut.
“At the time it wasn’t hard; it was impossible; Canada didn’t have an astronaut program, but I figured I can’t control world politics, I can’t control national policy, but the only thing I can really control is myself.”
He also made the case for planning ahead to achieve their dreams.
“If you can give yourself some sort of long-term objective – and for me it was to have a chance to go live in space, maybe walk on the moon, go live on a space station – if you can give yourself a long-term objective, then it really helps with all the little decisions that you make every day.”
Hadfield is in town for the Growing the North Conference, where he will be speaking later this afternoon.